Scary Madison Productions.

Just those words should kind of scare you – the combination of Adam Sandler and horror films has wielded an unholy union of direct to DVD horror.  But, sadly, that’s the scariest thing about the film.  Because The Shortcut isn’t really scary or funny, despite attempts at being both.

Full review after the jump.

So, in The Shortcut, two brothers new in town are trying to get acclimated to their new surroundings, but the younger brother comes home one day after being threatened by a crazy old man on the way home from school one day.   As it turns out, the crazy old man may be responsible for a rash of missing dogs in the area.  So one night (like over halfway into the damn movie), the older brother and some of his friends decide to sneak into the old man’s house to find out what’s really going on and what, if any, urban legends are true.

The thing about The Shortcut is that it’s (mostly) competently made and acted.  The actors all put in a pretty decent job, and, visually, the film may not be blu-ray material, but is certainly a higher quality DTV.  However, the fault in the film lies in the fact that…well, it’s just not scary.  Nothing really happens until the last 15/20 minutes of the film and, even then, the payoff is certainly not worth it.

Despite some (poorly executed) gory bits when things (finally) happen, the film could have been a Goosebumps episode.  I mean, the whole Scooby Doo mystery angle just doesn’t make for a scary movie, and I hesitate to even think the film was intended to be funny, because it’s really not.  It looks like the cast is having fun making the movie, but I certainly didn’t have fun watching it.

I had high hopes for Scary Madison, if for nothing else than the fact that it’s such an odd mix that I was hoping we’d get either an interesting horror film, or an interesting travesty.  But the main problem is The Shortcut just isn’t interesting.